Friday, June 25, 2010

Hi everyone. We have been so busy over the last few weeks! It seems like everything is moving right along. We got our fingerprints scanned and put in the mail. We filled out our long and lengthy questionnaire and gave it, along with some more paperwork to our social worker. We had our medical evaluation done last week, and we had our home study done yesterday. Whew, what a relief it is to have all of that over and done. We have a little bit more paperwork to do on our finances, but hopefully that will be it for a while. As far as we know, once all paperwork (medical evaluation, background check, finances, etc.) is filled out and received by the adoption agency's main office in Montgomery, our home study will be reviewed along with all of our information. They will then determine if we will be approved for adoption. In the meantime, we will be gathering pictures for our portfolio and trying to be patient.

We only have one more class left! It's hard to believe that the end of the 10 week course is almost here. We have learned so much and made some life long friends. We will keep everyone posted on our progress. Love y'all!

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Hey everyone! It's been a few weeks since we last posted. We have been so busy lately with home improvements and homework and our classes. We finally have a few moments to sit down and inform everyone of our progress. So far, there is not much to tell. We had our fifth class yesterday. We are learning so much. We really do enjoy the classes and have made a lot of friends. Last week we received our adoption packet that consists of a VERY lengthy and detailed questionnaire. Each of us will have to fill that out and turn it in before the one on one interviews with our social worker. So, once we do that, we will schedule our home study. Also in the packet were our fingerprint cards and our medical evaluation forms. We hope to go sometime this week and have our fingerprints scanned so we can go ahead and get those in the mail. We were told that the background check usually takes quite a while to come back. As for the medical evaluation, we will try and make our appointments for the next week or so. We will keep everyone updated. Please continue to pray for us! Don't forget to check out our coffee website!! We love y'all!!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

We attended our first adoption class Tuesday night. Our anticipation/nervousness was growing as we entered the building because we honestly had no idea what we were about to experience. Five minutes into the class we realized that we were surrounded by 10 people just like us. It is a class set up for people wanting to adopt, as well as, fostering children and teens. Some of the stories of how everyone arrived in the class were similar to the path we have been down. But, some of the couples there were just genuinely wonderful people wanting to help a child in need.

In our first class, we did a few group building exercises to help everyone get comfortable with each other. We talked about some of the different situations where children have needed to be adopted or fostered and what feelings they might have or behaviors they might show. We learned how to recognize some of our strengths and needs when it comes to parenting a child. We were given some handouts that described in detail what to expect in the upcoming classes. We are looking forward to our next class and we'll keep everyone posted as we continue. We love you all and thanks for the words of encouragement and prayers.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

There are a lot of things involved in adopting a child. Our agency requires all adoptive couples to complete a training course. It will be once a week for 10 weeks. As far as we can tell, it will be a course to determine if Gary and I are ready to adopt, among other things. They will inform us of what emotions the birthmother is experiencing and what to expect before and after adoption. They will instruct us on preparing our portfolio and scrapbook for the birthmothers. They will also inform us on everything that is involved in the home study, which we were told would be conducted after the 10 week course. Our first class is May 4. We are excited and anxious and ready to begin. We will post more later and let all of you know how our first class went. Thank you all so much for your genuine excitement and continuing words of encouragement. We love you all so very much!

Help Support our Adoption

Gary and Valerie

As some of you may know, Gary and I have tried to conceive a child of our own for some time now. This has been a long and difficult road for us. We have been to many doctors and tried multiple treatments and procedures, all of them unsuccessful.

Over the past couple of years, adoption had been in the back of our minds. We talked about it sometimes, but never dreamed that it would be God's plan for us. The more time that passed with no pregnancy, the more we talked about the possibility of adoption. Last Fall, Gary and I had a long and serious discussion about what we truly wanted. We WANTED to adopt! The more we talked about it, the more excited we became! It was like this incredible weight had been lifted from our shoulders. There was no stress or pressure, only the excitement and anticipation of being a mom and dad to a precious little baby.

Once we made the decision to adopt, we had several other decisions to make. Over the next few months we did a lot of research. Do we want to adopt internationally or domestically? If we decided international, which country should we pick? Do we want a boy or girl? How old? How should we go about the whole thing? Should we contact an attorney or call an agency? Which agency? We talked and talked and researched and then researched some more. Finally, the beginning of March we made our decision. We decided the best match for us was an infant baby through domestic adoption. We hope to adopt a sweet little girl, but ultimately we just pray for a healthy baby. The agency we chose to go through is a non-profit Christian organization which matches birthmothers and adoptive couples. We met with our social worker on March 12 and she told us all about the agency and what types of things we can expect with adoption. We learned that this particular agency is pretty selective when choosing adoptive couples. We were given a pre-application and told that the agency would meet the first week in April to decide if we would be accepted.

After several weeks of waiting, Gary received an email from our social worker. She told us that the agency had accepted us! Yay! We are so excited! Gary and I are more certain than ever that this is the path that God has chosen for us. So now our journey of adoption officially begins.